HIGH BIAS -- reissues

High Bias refreshed

BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL
With a Million Tear-Stained Memories
(Projekt)
It's been 17 years since musician/entrepreneur Sam Rosenthal inaugurated the beloved Projekt label with The Rope, the debut album by his multi-faceted electronic ensemble black tape for a blue girl. In that time Rosenthal and Projekt pioneered the Gothic rock subgenre called darkwave and sold thousands (if not millions—it's hard to tell when Soundscan doesn't register Internet sales) of albums by category-defying artists like Lycia, Unto Ashes and Steve Roach without so much as a passing glance from mainstream music publications or fans. Black tape itself hit its artistic peak with last year's luminously beautiful The Scavenger Bride, and apparently Rosenthal felt it was time to sum up: With a Million Tear-Stained Memories is the first all-encompassing compilation devoted to Projekt's flagship act.

Even as a best-of, this is a challenging set. Rosenthal and his various singers (most prominently dramatic tenor Oscar Herrera and lovely thrushes Julianna Townes and Sue Kenny-Smith) and backing musicians (mostly flautist and spouse Lisa Feuer and violinist Vicki Richards) don't create upbeat, happy synth-pop—this is brooding stuff, where melancholy is often the brightest color on the emotional palette. The songwriter's high romanticism results in self-absorbed, image-heavy songs with poetic leanings, leading more critical listeners to throw words like "pretentious" at Rosenthal's work. Also, he tends to derive his melodies from classical and baroque motifs, not pop or rock, and the leisurely pace of the more-often-than-not percussionless songs will test the attention span of the casual pop fan. More adventurous listeners, however, will find a lot to appreciate here. There's a great deal of beauty in the languorous melodies and sonorous atmosphere of tracks like "Your One Wish," "Ashes in the Brittle Air" and "The Flow of Our Spirit," which sound like little else in music, Goth or otherwise. The second disk consists of instrumental tracks and is definitely aimed at the diehard, rather than the newcomer. Some of black tape's more accessible moments, like "All My Lovers" from The Scavenger Bride, could have been included to make the collection a bit more neophyte-friendly, but anyone with a taste for sphere-expanding art will find With a Million Tear-Stained Memories to be a fresh breeze through a stale atmosphere. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: This Mortal Coil, Eyeless in Gaza, Love is Colder Than Death

MARC BOLAN
You Scare Me to Death!
(Versailles)
The origins of this album are as spurious as they come: in 1966, a young British would-be rock star named Marc Bolan appeared at the doorstep of producer Simon Napier-Bell with an acoustic guitar and played a dozen self-penned tunes that he thought were "fantastic." Napier-Bell agreed and later recorded Bolan performing just as he had in Napier-Bell's living room, with just a voice and guitar. Bolan then formed the acid-folk ensemble Tyrannosaurus Rex, which in turn evolved into the glam rock supernova T. Rex, and had a long and prosperous career as a rock & roll god before perishing in a car crash in the late 70s. In 1981, someone took these demos and overdubbed a full band on top of them, releasing the results as You Scare Me to Death!. This kind of project usually never works; the gulf between the artist's original intentions and the (sometimes) well-meaning producers is just too wide.

It's hard to say what Bolan's aim for these songs was—whether or not he intended to record them properly someday or they were merely meant to stir up industry interest—so it's impossible to know if they were supposed to be goofy psychedelic folk songs like those he recorded under the Tyrannosaurus Rex banner or the effervescent glam rock he created as T. Rex. The producers and musicians who did the overdubbing assumed the latter, and why not? That's what made Bolan famous, after all. Regardless of original intent, the songs boast singalong choruses, ear-catching melodies and remarkably tasteful performances by the sessioneers; Bolan's distinctive vocals—which always seemed to boast and pout at the same time—remain at the forefront. Songs like the psychedelic pop tracks "The Perfumed Garden of Gulliver Smith" and "Eastern Spell," the folky ballad "Cat Black" and, most especially, the boppin' rockers "Mustang Ford," "Charlie" and the title track hold up nicely to Bolan's best work with T.Rex. This edition also includes a snippet of an interview with Bolan, though the fidelity is so muffled it's hardly worth hearing. But that's a minor complaint. You Scare Me to Death! could have been a complete disaster; instead it's shockingly good. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Richard Barone, Love and Rockets, Ian Hunter

DEL AMITRI
Del Amitri
(Superfecta)
Glasgow's Del Amitri has had a solid amount of success (though not as much as it probably deserves) over the past decade or so with its soulful, listener-friendly mainstream pop; albums like Change Everything and hits like "Roll With Me" epitomize a certain strain of intelligent, emotional pop rock that's as dependable as the advent of tax time. The band concocted this formula on the remarkable 1989 album Waking Hours, a heartfelt blend of power pop, country and soul that set the standard not only for the band but also its imitators (like the vastly inferior Devlins).

What many Americans don't realize, however, is that Waking Hours is not the band's first album; Del Amitri's self-titled debut arrived with little fanfare four years earlier. What may be even more shocking for casual fans, however, is the style of this recording. While still most definitely a pop group, the quartet hadn't yet hit upon the warm sound of its best-known period. Instead, the young band was still under the sway of Scottish indie pop pioneers like Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, not to mention the American jangle pop that was making its way across the Atlantic from the States. Brittle, distortion-less guitars swirl around busy basslines and skittering drumming; leader Justin Currie sounds like a different person, his clear brogue miles from the soulful rasp of his later incarnation. The songs themselves share little with the band's better-known ditties; the melodies aren't as smooth, the rhythms deliberately stiffer. That isn't to say they aren't catchy, though; indeed, "I Was Here," "Hammering Heart" and the classic single "Sticks and Stones Girl" (which features an acoustic slide guitar solo that drops a hint of the band's future roots rock direction) are easily as diverting and memorable as anything in Del Amitri's more celebrated future. This edition also features a quartet of B-sides from early singles, including the simply wonderful "The Difference Is" and a loving pisstake of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl." Del Amitri is so unlike the group's later work it sounds like a completely different band, but it's so unfailingly appealing and undeniably charming it should be a welcome addition to the collection of any DA fan—or, for that matter, any fan of smart, quirky pop. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: the Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, Kitchens of Distinction

MOTT THE HOOPLE
Greatest Hits
(Columbia/Legacy)
Mott the Hoople is a classic rock band in every sense. Not only does the long-defunct British combo's music teem with monstrous hooks and sneering attitude, but the songs truly stand the test of time, sounding as fresh today as they did in the band's early 70s heyday. Led by singer/head writer Ian Hunter and guitarist Mick Ralphs (at least until he joined Bad Company), the band formed its own distinct sound, one that stands out as much now as it did then. Originally conceived as an attempt at sounding like Bob Dylan fronting the Rolling Stones, the group incorporated elements of glam, music hall, sentimental balladry and heavy metal into its own flashy, highly theatrical, yet still down-to-earth style. The band's career was essentially over by 1974, when Hunter left (though the group carried on with a new singer and the truncated name Mott), but in five years it had left an impressive mark on the landscape.

Mott recorded for three different labels during its brief career, and unfortunately Greatest Hits covers only one of those periods. But the band's stint with Columbia was its most fruitful, both in terms of sales and creativity, so even though you get only half the story here, you get a darn good half. The hits are here, of course: the rollicking "All the Way From Memphis," the self-mocking pityfest "Ballad of Mott" and the blockbuster "All the Young Dudes," the guitar riff of which remains one of rock's greatest. But the set is filled out with deeper album cuts that resonate just as loudly, from propulsive rockers like "Golden Age of Rock 'N' Roll" and "One of the Boys" (one of two bonus tracks in this edition), which co-writer Mick Ralphs eventually morphed into the Bad Company hit "Can't Get Enough," to anthemic ballads like "Saturday Gigs" and "Hymn For the Dudes." Best of all is "Roll Away the Stone," a graceful, lyrical mid-tempo rocker that is the band's unknown classic.

And yet, this album doesn't completely satisfy. There are a couple of throwaways, like bassist Overend Watts' raucous but empty "Born Late '58" and a good-natured but limp cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane." The presence of substandard tracks is all the more infuriating when you realize what's left out; where the heck is "I Wish I Was Your Mother," one of Hunter's most devastating songs? It's not like there's not room for more; the record is only 45 minutes long—and that's with two bonus tracks. There's plenty of room for more cuts, which would have made it more attractive to fans looking for nicely remastered versions of old favorites and sold more copies, which would ensure remastered versions of the studio albums. As it stands, Greatest Hits is still a great listen and a good sampler of a band too often overlooked by rock historians, but it's not the revitalization of a strong catalog it could have been. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: early 70s David Bowie, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, Imperial Drag